codeblue1018 wrote:Kaskavel wrote:This is a complex case. Instead of offering an answer to the accusations, I will emphasize to the roots of the problem
1. Freestyle setting combined with objectives. This setting by itself creates problems. I can hardly imagine playing 10 games in this setting with 7 of my friends and not us ending up angry with each other. Suspicions raise all the time, the boundaries between cheating and unfair become grey and people already friends to each other obtain superior winning chances without having to cheat, just by trusting each other
2. Friends playing together in non escalating games. I solved those problems a long time ago, by almost never joining non-escalating games with my friends. If I was playing with mc or sirJohn 8 player flat rate games, I would now have the same problems. I made a decision and it works just fine. You can have your fun with friends in escalating games or assasin games, but not in diplomacy based games
3. The real issue in the presented case is not if the agreement is legal. It is whether those two playes are intentionaly or unintentionaly (and this makes the case even more complex) cheating by playing together in this game from the first place. It is quite obvious that this cannot be answered or proven, no matter how many pages are written down in forums.
4. Kiron made a mistake. A mistake from a subjective point of view. He became conqueror through that moraly shaky game and I imagine he has already regretted it. No matter if he cheated or not and no matter if he deserves to be conqueror or not, the mere fact that his last game from marshal to conqueror was decided in a debatable way will now hunt him down. Fair or not fair, I dont know, but the fact is that people will tend to describe Kiron as "oh...that guy who cheated that game to become conqueror", spoiling his player career. This psycology of the masses is not fair, a player at Kiron's level does not have anything to prove to anyone (unless we believe he is cheating all his career), in fact no marshall or general has anything to prove to anyone. Any general is obviousy a powerful player who could become conqueror if he concentrates to favourable tactics for a period of time and it should not be that important what happened in that specific game. After all, he could become conqueror next game or become an "almost conqueror". Is that really so important? In that case, would he be a fair conqueror, but now he is an unfair conqueror?
5. Freestyle concept. Not all people understand freestyle in the same way. Some intercept freestyle 3rd crusade as a setting that makes games faster to play and some others like a game that you have to wait for the last hour to play, so as not to be left out of the "big deal". Obviously, from a cold objective point of view, the second category of players are correct and will win the game 100% of the time. Freestyle was invented as a way to play faster, but "scientists" of this site has evolved it into a heavily complex setting, where unexperienced players cannot possibly survive
As a conclusion, I repeat again that the simplest thing is to avoid friends in non escalating games and in diplomacy based games in general. I also just avoid multiplayer freestyles as well, it turns out that real life gets significantly favored by this tactic, but again, this is just me.
Well said mate. Thing is, freestyle is a very fun aspect to this game; it does however, have an attribute to it that can be manipulated as you just mentioned especially in objective games I.E third crusade, oasis to name a couple. People have made an awful lot of points playing in this manner. I am certain Kiron and X are very good players and can win games by themselves. A lot of people lost respect for the number 1 spot on the scoreboard and I don't blame their reasons for that. We must remember that there have been several conquerors that do deserve the respect of holding that spot, including you Kaskaval and there will be more to come so we need not judge a few and lose sight of that. I hardly doubt Kiron will lose sleep over the fact that people lost respect for him if they ever had it to begin with so to me, that is irrelevant. What bothers me is the facts that COF brought to the communities attention; these facts if you will are hard to ignore. That in conjunction with the fact that Kiron and X utilize the same computer in the same household and Kiron writing in his words logged in on X's account is proof to me that shenanigans happen. X claims he forgot to log off, which is why Kiron assumed he was on his own account; I'm not buying that story. Nonetheless, it's over; the mods with make a ruling soon.
Great post Kask, but some points from my perspective.
1. Well, nothing wrong with manipulating game settings to your advantage. Is that not the point of battles? Fight battles with as much odds in your favour regardless of the opposition? Just speaking for myself, I don't invite beginners to my games, they are free to join, just like they are free to join any other game. How is that any different than creating lots of 1v1 games or lots of teams games with crushing team composition where the game creators have a very strong advantage against unsuspecting players (not our fault players don't read the map rules)
2. Just because some prefer without friends, some prefer to play with friends. That's just a matter of preference, you can't say one is superior to another.
3. Well, i'm not going to bother into that point since you already where I stand on it and there isn't i can do to convince you otherwise other than what you yourself said, it cannot be proven. After all, in the words of Justice Lord Black "it's better to let 100 guilty go free to accidentally convict one innocent man".
4. Kiron doesn't care about his reputation. He is known on his comments for scheming, backstabbing, not trustworthy, etc. He only cares about winning similar to me. That's our philosophy when playing Risk, hate the game but not the player and it's been successful in getting victories.
5. I say it's a hybrid. I like freestyle because it's faster, especially as a freemium. But waiting and not losing leverage is also important in either objective or non objective games. Learning specifically from our game Kask, going first got me killed in a 4 way coordinated attack despite being game leader by a large margin because I lost leverage.
Avoiding is possible, just not preferable because it's a matter of preference. Will some suspect cheating because of RL friends? Yes, but unless CC makes a specific policy regarding RL friends and the game to play, it's not really fair to block some and not others.
@codeblue, I already mentioned that was an honest mistake regarding forgetting to log out. I was just annoyed and Kiron was in a rush to disprove a point (I think he doesn't care anymore, he's just finishing his last game now to my knowledge) so mistakes can happen, but we do our best to limit it, not just for the site, but we have our own incentives to play sporty because we are also playing against each other and no point winning against each other if we are cheating.
Regarding this game in question from the OP, it's already been resolved. We already admitted it was an honest mistake from misunderstanding of the rules (and OP agreed also) and we already got punished for it from the MODs.